Eien Aishiteru
by ChildlikeEmpress
Summary: Sesshoumaru ponders the impact a young blind girl has made on his life, in both the past and present. ONESHOT. Sess/Rin AU


"Eien Aishiteru" by ChildlikeEmpress

Sesshoumaru Takaya walked, no _strode_ down the street briefcase in hand, towards his office in downtown Kyoto. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered to walk. Maybe it was just because he disliked driving?

Nothing ticked him off more in the morning than some idiot driver cutting in front of him in the middle of an intersection. Take that back, getting a call from his sorry half-brother was worse.

And that was just what had happened that morning.

Inuyasha, his idiot half-brother had called him early this morning asking to borrow two-thousand dollars. Money wasn't the issue, it was the fact that after all the money he had spent on college for the dolt, Inuyasha was still living in a one room flat with his latest girlfriend, begging for handouts.

And that just ticked Sesshoumaru off.

Meanwhile.

The girl stood on the corner of 13th and Tanuki St. just like she did every week, waiting for someone to help her cross. One of the many things the girl disliked about being blind. But no use crying over spilt milk she thought smiling ruefully. She had long ago gotten used to being handicapped in this way, though she refused to call it that.

After all, the accident had happened a long time ago. She couldn't remember. Her parents say it was when she was born, but sometimes she wondered if that really was so. When she was a little girl she used to have nightmares of a monster that looked like a giant spider. The dream always ended with something horrible burning her eyes, and a voice calling her name over and over.

She smiled, but that wasn't how it happened, it couldn't have been. It was somebody else. She could have kicked her self for spacing out like that. She straightened her shoulders resolutely, it was time to go back to the task at hand, which was having to ask complete strangers to help her do something as simple as crossing the street.

The girl heard several people pass by, each time they did she wasn't able to do more than squeak slightly when trying to use her voice. Once someone was rude enough to ask why she didn't just get a seeing-eye dog. The girl hadn't replied but in her head she came up with a dozen explanations, one of which that seeing-eye dogs were expensive, and the other that this was the only street she ever had to cross. 'Besides' she thought to herself. 'I only have to cross this stretch of road once a week anyway, it's not a valid excuse to waste mother's hard-earned money on.' She sighed. The girl cocked her head to one side trying to hear over the bustle of the crowds, a morose expression on her face when she didn't hear the sound of 'his' footsteps. Why wasn't 'he' here? 'He' would have simply taken her by the arm and walked her across. Just like every week. Except for last week, or the week before… Maybe she had done something to anger him?

Finally gathering up her courage, the girl reached out a hand and spoke to the next person she heard walk by. "Please, could you help me across?"

Sesshoumaru looked towards the voice. 'Damn you Inuyasha, if I hadn't been thinking about this morning I would have remembered not to be late!'

He remembered the first time he had met her, crossing right here, and she had timidly asked for assistance. She looked so much like 'she' had. And the unspoken connection they felt between them was obvious.

Switching his briefcase to the other hand he held out his right to the girl. "Here."

Instantly a smile lit up her whole face. 'He came!' she squealed in her head, while out loud she spoke: "It's you! It's been weeks you know, how's work? Did you sleep well? Isn't it a beautiful day?"

Anyone walking past at during the torrid of questions would have thought the stoic demon angry, but if they had known him at all, they would have seen the way his eyes crinkled the slightest bit in the corners, so slight, it was almost unnoticeable.

"I haven't even had my morning coffee and already you're giving me the third degree? As for work, it is the same as every other time you've asked me, the same goes for whether I slept well or not. And as for it being a beautiful day, I hardly think so."

The light turned green.

The girl looked up at her companion, eyes troubled. "Is everything alright? You sound angry, if it's something I did I'm sorry! It's just I was so happy to see you, I mean to know it was you walking me across." The girl stopped, afraid that anything she said might make his mood worse, little did she know that it had done the opposite.

Nothing needed to be said. He simply gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, but meanwhile he frowned slightly. It was his own selfishness that had made him absent the past weeks. He was angry, not at her, but at himself.

She would never know it, in fact no one would know it, but he still felt the guilt that had plagued him for the past five-hundred years.

Because he had failed to save her. He had tried and Tenseiga didn't work. He felt so useless, holding her hand, watching her cry through sightless eyes. He never got to tell her...

But that was then, and this is now.

Some people walking past would drop their jaws and stare at the strange picture the two made, the stern looking demon and the young happy human girl. They didn't seem to fit together at all. Yet, they did. And for minutes after they had passed the same people, would still be wondering why that was so.

But Sesshoumaru knew why, because the girl reminded him of someone from long ago, someone who was made so happy by so little, who knew how to melt the ice encasing his heart.

The light changed back, and they found themselves at the opposite corner. He turned, ending his musings to look at the smiling girl next to him.

"You're very quiet today Sesshoumaru-sama, are you sure you're alright?"

A tiny smile graced his features."

"Yes Rin, I'm fine."


End file.
